For the first time, the complete collected poems from the author of A SUITABLE BOY, 'The best writer of his generation' (THE TIMES)
Vikram Seth Books
June 20, 1952
Vikram Seth is a storyteller who delves into the depths of human lives and relationships across cultures and continents. His work is characterized by an unusual forthrightness, where personal narratives intertwine with broader social and historical backdrops. Seth's writing often explores themes of identity, family, and the search for one's place in the world, employing a style that is both engaging and introspective. His literary output frequently reflects his own lived experiences and sentiments, offering readers an intimate glimpse into his inner world.
Ten witty and enchanting animal fables in verse - in a beautifully illustrated new format
Three Chinese Poets
- 80 pages
- 3 hours of reading
The three Chinese poets translated here are among the greatest literary figures of China, or indeed the world. Wang Wei with his quiet love of nature and Buddhist philosophy; Li Bai, the Taoist spirit, with his wild, flamboyant paeans to wine and the moon; and Du Fu, with his Confucian sense of sympathy with the suffering of others in a time of civil war and collapse. These three poets of a single generation, responding differently to their common times, crystallise the immense variety of China and the Chinese poetic tradition and, across a distance of twelve hundred years, move the reader as it is rare for even poetry to do.
Beastly Tales
- 144 pages
- 6 hours of reading
Ten witty and enchanting animal fables in verse which, like a modern Aesop's Fables, can be enjoyed by young and old alike
Set in post-colonial India in the early 1950s, this culturally rich and colorfully textured family saga is an epic novel destined to become a literary classic."Surrender to this strange, beguiling world and be swept away on the wings of story....It is difficult to imagine that many contemporary writers could give us a novel that provides so much deep satisfaction." "--Washington Post Book World"
`The perfect travel book' New Statesman Hitch-hiking, walking, slogging through rivers and across leech-ridden hills, Vikram Seth travelled through Sinkiang and Tibet to Nepal: from Heaven Lake to the Himalayas. By breaking away from the reliable routes of organised travel, he transformed his journey into an unusual and intriguing exploration of one of the world's least known areas. 'Vikram Seth is already the best writer of his generation' Daniel Johnson, The Tmes
La couv. indique : "The Rivered Earth contains four libretti written by Vikram Seth to be set to music by Alec Roth - together with an account of the pleasures and pains of working with a composer. They take us all over the world - from Chinese and Indian poetry to the beauty and quietness of the Salisbury house where the poet George Herbert lived and died. Spanning centuries of creativity and humanity, these poems pulse with life, energy and inspired brilliance. They are accompanied by four pieces of calligraphy by the author."
The golden gate
- 320 pages
- 12 hours of reading
Written in verse, this was Vikram Seth's first novel. Set in the 1980s, in the affluence and sunshine of California's silicon valley, it is the story of twenty-somethings looking for love, pleasure and the meaning of life.
A breathtaking new collection of poetry from Vikram Seth, author of A SUITABLE BOY and 'the best writer of his generation' (THE TIMES)
An Equal Music
- 380 pages
- 14 hours of reading
The violinist hero of Vikram Seth's third novel would very much like to be hearing secret harmonies. Instead, living in London 10 years after a key disaster, Michael Holme is easily irritated by his beautiful young (and even French!) girlfriend and by his colleagues in the Maggiore Quartet. In short, he's fed up with playing second fiddle in life and art. Yet a chance encounter with Julia, the pianist he had loved and lost in Vienna, brings Michael sudden bliss. Her situation, however--and the secret that may end her career--threatens to undo the lovers. An Equal Music is a fraction of the size of Seth's A Suitable Boy , but is still deliciously expansive. In under 400 pages, the author offers up exquisite complexities, personal and lyrical, while deftly fielding any fears that he's composed a Harlequin for highbrows. During one emotional crescendo, Michael tells Julia, "I don't know how I've lived without you all these years," only to realize, "how feeble and trite my words sound to me, as if they have been plucked out of some housewife fantasy." In addition to the pitch of its love story, one of the book's joys lies in Seth's creation of musical extremes. As the Maggiore rehearses, moving from sniping and impatience to perfection, the author expertly notates the joys of collaboration, trust, and creation. "It's the weirdest thing, a quartet," one member remarks. "I don't know what to compare it to. A marriage? a firm? a platoon under fire? a self-regarding, self-destructive priesthood? It has so many different tensions mixed in with its pleasures." An Equal Music is a novel in which the length of Schubert's Trout Quintet matters deeply, the discovery of a little-known Beethoven opus is a miracle, and each instrument has its own being. Just as Michael can't hope to possess Julia, he cannot even dream of owning his beloved Tononi, the violin he has long had only on loan. And it goes without saying that Vikram Seth knows how to tell a tale, keeping us guessing about everything from what the Quartet's four-minute encore will be to what really occasioned Julia's departure from Michael's life. (Or was it in fact Michael who abandoned Julia?) As this love story ranges from London to Michael's birthplace in the north of England to Vienna to Venice, few readers will remain deaf to its appeals. --Kerry Fried
